Ruin the Sky
by QueenStrata
Summary: Sci-fi fluff AU one shot inspired by a prompt: "The Precursors designed their ships for 4-armed pilots, so human explorers have to learn to work together very closely to fly."


A/N: Well, I guess I'd might as well post this up here too, huh? It's Roy/Ed week over on the Tumblrs, so here's my humble offering for day 1 with the prompt space/sf AU.

I have NOTHING ELSE planned for this 'verse ever. What you see is what you get. Enjoy it. (Or, y'know, don't.)

Warnings: Nothing but Ed's potty mouth.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, and everything is terrible. T_T

* * *

 _Ruin the Sky_

Their escape was more of a panicked, undignified retreat, but Roy would be willing to ignore that if they could just get out of this disaster alive. It should have been an easy enough mission, in and out for medical supplies with no one the wiser. But the military had been waiting. Any other crew and he'd be suspecting a mole, but he'd handpicked every man on his team himself, and he knew all of them were clean. Hell, even his trio of shady, and frankly terrifying, passengers had a hatred strong enough for the SINS that they could power an entire solar system on that emotion alone.

Which meant that one of his informants was a spy, and he would kill to know which one it was.

Time enough for that later. He had to get the ship into hyperspace before he could worry about anything else, and that wasn't going to be easy. Maes had gone down in the fight—Roy had seen it coming a second before it happened but hadn't been able to do anything about it—and that meant they were down a pilot. If it had been Gracia, the situation might not have been so dire. Roy could fly with Maes; they'd been partners in the war, and the envy of their unit. But Gracia? He'd be better off flying with Riza, and Riza couldn't fly.

Which meant he'd be flying alone.

Oh, he'd done it before. Most pilots had, one time or another, when their partners were exhausted or injured and they were just cruising their way home or across the long distances between planets. That was fine. You had plenty of time to make decisions and reach for controls. But in the heat of battle, when absolutely everything was a life or death situation and a quarter of a second could mean the difference between survival and an impressively fatal explosion? You needed those four arms. Literally: that's the way the controls had been designed.

Most spaceships—the good ones, anyway—hadn't ever been built for human use. Humans shrugged and adapted to them anyway. It was what they did.

Roy threw his jacket on the floor in an automatic movement as he slid into the pilot's seat, flipping switches without looking at them and powering his ship up. "Is everyone on board?" he called loudly.

"All accounted for, sir," Riza said briskly, calmly taking over Roy's command seat. Roy spared her a brief glare, but quickly turned his attention back to the screens as Breda passed by with Maes dangling lifelessly in his arms. The power was on and nothing appeared to have been tampered with, so he took a deep breath, lined up a few systems he'd be needing soon, and started liftoff.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Ed snarled, popping up behind Roy suddenly. Roy groaned. "Are you crazy? You can't fly this thing alone!"

"Would you care to go back to your friends instead?" Roy snapped. His hand jerked a little in irritation, and the ship lurched unexpectedly sideways. "Let me concentrate!"

Ed growled, but he wasn't stupid. Roy could feel him at his back, fidgeting with tension and anger, but it wasn't enough to distract him from the flight again. The ship lifted smoothly, and with all the shields in place the lasers from the weak handheld guns of the men that had been chasing them didn't even register as a threat. He still gunned it for the doors, hoping to surprise whoever was waiting on the other side as he came blasting out. It would be worth the scratches if it would get them out in one piece.

Of course his plan didn't work. Of course there was a whole damned _fleet_ waiting for him on the other side, and they barely even gave him time to clear the open doors before they started firing on him. It was dangerous for their own men inside—had probably gotten some of them killed—but what did the military care? All they wanted was to get rid of the insurgents making them look incompetent.

Roy felt the painful little smirk curling up his lips as he fired on the ships in his way. He wasn't going to make it. There were too many close calls already, and they'd barely even gotten _started_ —

"Fuck!" Ed yelled. "You damned fucking suicidal asshole!"

And the next thing Roy knew, he had a lap full of Edward Elric. Soft blond hair, usually folded neatly into a long plait, was half-undone and all over the place, and Roy sputtered around a mouthful of it. "What," he gasped, "the _hell_ —"

"We're not dying yet, Mustang," Ed said, his voice dark and determined. His reflection in the screens was wearing a similar expression, and he was just, damn, how had Roy not noticed before now how beautiful he was? "You with me?"

"Absolutely," Roy murmured softly. He wasn't certain Ed heard him.

Flying with Ed was like flying in a dream. Even with one arm a prosthetic, he seemed to respond to Roy's tiniest movements so smoothly it was almost as if he could read his mind, and half the time Roy knew what Ed needed from his reflection alone. It was barely even a challenge to break through the ranks of the fleet, and in fact they would have gotten away even sooner if Ed hadn't caught his eye in the screen and given him a dangerous, challenging grin. They'd taken on an extra set of fighters just for the thrill, Ed cackling in joy, and then as more came crawling up their tail they'd leapt into hyperspace and burnt them up in the aftershock.

In the relative safety of the space in between, Ed collapsed back against Roy, breathing heavily. Roy carefully unbent his fingers from around the controls, stretching them to get out the kinks. Very slowly, uncertain if it would be welcome, he put one hand under Ed's shirt and slid it gently over the skin of his stomach.

Ed's breath hitched and he turned his head to look up at Roy through hazy eyes. His left arm, well-muscled and bare, reached behind him to wrap around Roy's neck and pulled his face in close. Roy touched gentle fingertips to his cheeks. "May I...?"

"Fuck yes."

Roy kissed him gently, wanting to keep it slow while they recovered from the fight. He didn't really expect Ed to like it. He didn't think that a man who was always ready for a fight, who seemed to actively seek them out just to entertain himself, would enjoy the type of slow, drugging kisses Roy liked the best, but Ed didn't protest. Even when he turned around in Roy's lap to kiss him at a better angle, he just held on and kept to Roy's pace.

"Fuck," Ed breathed into his mouth. "Fuck, _Roy_."

Somebody very pointedly cleared their throat. Roy considered ignoring it,but the possibility that it was Riza was too high; he dragged his mouth away from Ed's.

"What?" he growled.

"We might want to leave hyperspace soon," Riza suggested dryly. "Unless you were planning to leave this universe entirely, sir."

Oh. Right. Roy reluctantly pushed Ed away and efficiently brought the ship back to normal speed. They came out in a quadrant Roy didn't recognize at all, and he made a face at the nearest planet in the system. Back to reality, he supposed. There was a rat to find, and a rebellion to plan, and—Maes—

Guilt settled heavily on his chest. He'd been so overwhelmed with the escape and Ed that he'd almost forgotten about the accident.

"He'll be fine," Ed said, his voice kind in a way Roy wasn't used to hearing. "Hughes is strong, and Winry is handy with more than just a wrench. She'll take care of him."

Roy blinked down at Ed, startled, then he smiled and cupped his face fondly. "So this what it takes to get you to be nice to me, is it? I should've kissed you months ago."

"I'd've kicked your ass, you fucking pervert!" Ed snarled, blushing. "Don't you have shit to do?"

"Oh, yes. Weren't we in the middle of something?"

"Sir," Riza said, exasperated and probably reaching for her gun. Roy kissed Ed again anyway. If he was going to die after all of that, he was going to die happy.


End file.
